Media Idiocy

{Edited to spell Mr. Fineman’s name correctly.}

Here’s one reason why political discourse in this country is so messed up. I watched the Presidential press conference on MSNBC. (Normally, I would not, but the remote wasn’t working and I hit MSNBC before any of the other news channels.) I found it to be above average, with President Obama tackling important questions about the administration’s health care plan and the looming political struggles over it. The questions were not bad, surprisingly, and President Obama was his usual erudite self. I think that, while little in the way of breaking news happened, he did capture the essence of the debate and make it meaningful for the average citizens.

Because I couldn’t switch the TV off fast enough (remember, no remote), I accidentally watched a brief exchange between Chris Matthews and his trained expert (Howard Feinman? Fineman).  Mr. Matthews led off with something like “Didn’t the president just step on his own headline with that final remark about Prof. Gates’ arrest in Cambridge?  Isn’t his taking the side of the professor going to be the story tomorrow?”  And Mr. Fineman nodded sagely and offered up the idiotic sentiment (again paraphrased), “It will dominate the discussion because it was news while little of the health care part was.”

Get it?  A citizen who watched the press conference — someone, we might assume, who tuned in because he or she is concerned about, maybe even a bit worried about about the state of their health care and the future of their family’s health treament — watched the President expound for 50 minutes in a solid, understandable way … this same citizen will apparently forget all of that and be seduced by the flash of a (notably pedestrian) discussion of the role of race in America.  Apparently that wipes out everything that went before, even though the citizen just spent an hour hearing it.

Of course, that’s just stupid.  Anyone who watched the conference will walk away thinking about health care.  Of course, very many Americans did not watch the conference.  More than likely, Messrs. Matthews and Fineman are correct:  Those Americans will mostly discuss the race question.  Why?  Because the media — including Matthews and Fineman — will spend the next few days telling America that the race question was the important part!  Why will that message be pushed?  Because it’s “self-evident” that it will be.  And my main anger flows towards the media pinheads (such as Matthews and Fineman) who will bemoan the circus and will complain that President Obama blew his opportunity, without even once noticing that the circus results from the actions of the clowns … that is, the very same media pinheads.

Political discourse is dying in thie country — indeed, if health care reform stalls, actual Americans will be dying in this country — because we have a media establishment that incentives flash and sizzle over substance and which actively discourages paying attention to serious issues by offering up tempests in teapots.